Toys

screaming. Then blood everywhere.”

“Did anybody say anything? Do you remember any of the faces? The attackers?”

“A human… with a big knife. A machete? He was-he was cutting off someone’s head. And he said, ‘Now we’ll find out what you know.’ ”

Abruptly, she clapped her hands to the sides of her face. “Why are you asking me this? Who are you?”

And then a shrill voice yelled out, “It’s him! It’s Hays Baker. Get him! He’s human scum!”

Chapter 36

Speechless, I looked down to see that one of the Jacob dolls had followed us. He was pointing an accusing finger at me. And then little Jacob said, “You are going to get the slow death, big man!”

“Well, better that than the swift kick,” I said, picking him up and punting him out over the escalator bank. I took some satisfaction in hearing his shrill little scream silence as he smashed through a Perfumone display case-but it was a short-term fix to a much larger problem.

The store’s alarms were blaring, security bolts on the doors began slamming shut, and police sirens started to wail in the distance.

“Thanks for your help,” I told the Elite woman. “I have to run.”

I picked up and heaved a 300- to 400-pound SimStim booth through a window. Then I leaped after it, landing on the street outside in a shower of splintered glass.

“Halt, Hays Baker!” a loud digitized voice boomed somewhere behind me. “We will shoot to kill! Repeat, we will shoot to kill!”

Tell me about it. I took off past the simulation booth, zigzagging my way back to the car.

Minutes later, I was in the ZX and weaving through the streets of New Lake City, keeping the speed down to 180 miles per hour so as not to attract undue attention. I was pretty sure I’d gotten away from the store without the cops spotting me. Even better, I didn’t see anyone following now.

At the city’s northern outskirts, high-rise buildings and fancy houses gave way to an industrial area filled with long, low warehouses and factories.

As the streets opened into freight-friendly freeways, I jacked my speed up to 300.

It looked like I’d made it one more step on this journey-wherever it was leading.

I set the locator code for my parents’ house and switched the car over to automatic pilot. My folks lived far out in the north country, so the trip would take approximately four hours.

“OK, I need to rest,” I said. “May I have a very dry vodka martini? I think I deserve it.”

“With pleasure,” said the personal-attendant program. Slim, red-fingernail-tipped hands opened the bar compartment and mixed the drink. “What else can I do for you?”

“You know, what I really want is some sleep. Wake me up a few minutes before we get to the south shore of Lake Wabago, will you?”

“Of course. How about a full-body massage to help you relax?” she said, and added, “It’s one of my specialties.”

“Sounds terrific,” I said.

And was it ever. Her fingers started on my neck and shoulders, probing gently into my exceedingly tense muscles. Like all the best robotic massages, this one featured infrared heat radiating from the android’s fingertips, soothing body tissue clear down to the bones.

When I finished the martini, I reclined all the way back in the seat and stretched out as far as I could. The attendant’s smooth hands unfastened my shirt and started working on my chest.

“I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but you’ve got a great body,” she murmured.

“I don’t mind,” I said. “Most people have been kind of down on me lately.”

Sleep, I told myself. You have to sleep.

And that’s what I did.

Chapter 37

Afew hours later, I was fully alert and back at the wheel. The personal attendant gasped excitedly as I made a sharp left turn and plunged the ZX headfirst into the lake that surrounded the island where my parents lived. Stabilizing fins shot out from the sides of the pod, and the drivetrain instantly disengaged from the wheels and connected to the rear water jets.

“Oooh, I’m so wet,” the attendant chirped seductively. This was a sports model after all, a boy’s toy.

I loved the car for its performance attributes, if nothing else. I’d already decided that if I survived long enough, I was going to find the guy I’d taken it from and buy it for real.

It glided along smoothly, skirting sunken logs and sending schools of bass and perch darting away. When I was a kid, I’d spent a lot of time up here on the lake with my dad, fishing for walleyed pike, lake trout, even eels, which can be surprisingly delicious when cooked up fresh after the catch.

I hadn’t seen my folks much since university-and then I’d become an Agent of Change and married Lizbeth. I loved and respected my parents, but, well, they weren’t the easiest people to be around.

I’d always known they were unusual, even odd. Before I was born, they’d invested in the biotech industry and done well. But they decided they wanted a simpler life, so they moved to this faraway, wild north country on the lake. Now they spent their time gardening and tinkering without much connection to society, and they seemed to like it that way. They saw Lizbeth, me, and the kids once a year, and that seemed enough for them, which was strange to me. My parents had always been warm and loving when I was a child.

The ZX shot up out of the water and onto a pebbly beach, then it snaked through a stretch of thick, tangled forest while tree limbs brushed its roof and windows.

It was late morning now, cloudy and warm, the leaves glistening with dew and the air thick with birdsong. The forest opened into a large clearing-and there was the sprawling, old-fashioned house where I’d grown up. Everything looked just the way I remembered it, cedar shingles and all. Even the smell of the pine trees was familiar.

Except that someone I didn’t recognize was up on a ladder, working on the roof. It was a woman who had her hair tucked under a painter’s cap. She must have been a human my parents had hired to do the chores, although I didn’t recall them mentioning it, or ever doing that before. They’d always taken care of the place themselves. Well, they weren’t getting any younger, were they? Nobody was.

“So you made it here on your own,” the menial worker called as I climbed out of the car. “I’m impressed. You’re more resourceful than I would have guessed.”

The timbre of her voice registered immediately in my brain, and it was like I’d been zapped with a Taser-the woman was the leader of the gang of skunks who had attacked Lizbeth and me, the one who got away.

Chapter 38

I fought back wild surprise-and then a wave of rage-and managed a frosty smile worthy of my former rank and station at the Agency. Am I walking into an ambush? Are my parents here-are they even alive? I wondered, in that order.

“Well, well,” I said. “Last time we met, you tried to kill me.”